Connecticut Women May Have to Share State Spotlight

USC, an NCAA championship program in the 1980s, will play Connecticut, the current national champion, for the first time today.

And when the Trojans come out on the floor they will see something they hardly ever see in Los Angeles.

An arena filled to capacity with fans. Hard-core women’s basketball fans, whose passion for the game and the Huskies can be seen and felt all over the state and not just in Storrs, Conn., where the university is. From cabdrivers to council members, there is a familiar refrain: “I wasn’t that big a basketball fan until I starting watching them play.”

There has been so much to watch. Since the program’s inception in 1974, the Huskies have tied for or won 12 Big East championships, appeared in six Final Fours, had two undefeated seasons and won three national championships. (The men’s team has one national championship.) Last year’s title team -- 39-0, winning by an average of 35.4 points and never trailing at halftime -- may have been the best women’s college team in history.

Tennessee is probably the only major college program whose following can compare to Connecticut’s. But even the Tennessee women, who have won six national championships and can easily fill their 24,000-seat Thompson-Boling Arena on campus, take a backseat to football.

Will the same thing happen to Husky basketball? Because football, Division I-A football, has arrived at Connecticut.

Until a couple of years ago the Huskies were a Division I-AA program. But through the work of campus officials and the support of the state legislature, Connecticut is making a smooth transition.

The Huskies have played an independent schedule but will join the Big East in 2005. This season they were able to provide the 85 football scholarships allowed by the NCAA. And next season they move into a $91-million, 44,000-seat stadium now under construction. By the time it’s finished it will be a $110-million complex. And Connecticut will spend an additional $44 million over the next three years to upgrade its facilities, of which $32 million is from taxpayers.

Athletic Director Lew Perkins has worked the last nine years to bring Connecticut athletics to the point where all 24 men’s and women’s teams are Division I-A.

Perkins believes a big-time football program, if successful, will attract more outstanding athletes to the university.

“We recruit well in basketball,” Perkins said. “But we had a hard time recruiting against other schools with big football games. If you look at the top 20 schools, nearly all are Division I-A schools.”

Football Coach Randy Edsall, who guided the Huskies to a 6-6 record that included an upset of Iowa State, knew it was important to get the support of women’s Coach Geno Auriemma and men’s Coach Jim Calhoun.

“One thing we had to rely on was the name recognition we achieved through basketball to help us get in the door,” Edsall said. “From what we did this year, football can now rest on its own merits. It says we have a well-rounded athletic department, that Connecticut does things right.”

It will take time to see whether Connecticut women’s basketball loses its statewide spotlight to football. But USC’s Chris Gobrecht, who has also coached Washington and Florida State and knows the kind of shadow a premier football program can cast, doesn’t think the Connecticut basketball program will suffer.

“I have found that women’s basketball and football can be very compatible if you have a highly successful football program,” Gobrecht said. “Because that’s where your [monetary] resources come from to let you operate women’s basketball at a really high level....

“When football does well it helps everybody out.”